Life as a professional baseball player is often portrayed as glamorous and replete with comfort, and for a fortunate handful, those are accurate descriptions. But for each Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Aaron Nola, there are several Diego Castillos.
Castillo was designated for assignment by the Phillies on Tuesday when they claimed right-hander Kaleb Ort off waivers from the Miami Marlins. And so continued the roller-coaster journey of transactional news on which Castillo has embarked the past couple months.
Castillo got exactly one at bat — a July 31 flyout — for the Arizona Diamondbacks last season, slashing a solid .313/.431/.410 with the Triple-A Reno Aces. But three days before Christmas, he was designated for assignment to make room for the re-signed Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the D-Backs’ 40-man roster.
Castillo was claimed off waivers by the New York Mets on Jan. 5, then DFA’d when the team officially signed Sean Manaea to a two-year deal one week later. A week after that, Castillo made the crosstown jump to the Yankees, who claimed him off waivers — then subsequently DFA’d him on Jan. 29 when they claimed southpaw Matt Gage.
Shortly after is when the Phillies swooped, claiming the outfielder and utility infielder off waivers Feb. 5. That brings us to Tuesday — just eight days later, short of his 10-day Yankees tenure but clear of his seven-day Mets stint — when Castillo was designated for assignment for the fourth time this offseason.
Two of those were corresponding moves to a waiver claim that doesn’t figure to move the needle all that much: the Phillies with Ort and the Yankees with Gage (though perhaps the Phillies see something they can unlock). In other words, it’s not as if Castillo was replaced by a Harper or a Turner, a fact that might make it a little tougher to swallow.
Regardless, it’s on to the next, and Castillo will hope that his next claim (at the very least, it seems initial interest in him is plentiful) is his last of the winter. If not, it’ll continue a particularly tough offseason for Castillo, who’s becoming a premier eyewitness to baseball’s brutal business side.
